Quotes About Power

The proof of the mightiest power is to be able to use the ignoble nobly, and given formlessness, to make it the material of unknown forms.

The first destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who first gave them bounties and largess

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

He made the city [Athens], great as it was when he took it, the greatest and richest of all cities, and grew to be superior in power to kings and tyrants. Some of these actually appointed him guardian of their sons, but he did not make his estate a single drachma greater than it was when his father left it to him.

When asked by a woman from Attica:'Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?', she said: 'Because we are the only ones who give birth to men.

For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people.

no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

It was] better to set up a monarchy themselves than to suffer a sedition to continue that must certainly end in one.

So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.

Being consulted again whether it were requisite to enclose the city with a wall, [Lycurgus] sent them word, 'The city is well fortified which hath a wall of men instead of brick'.

Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.

For kings indeed we have, who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects.

To seek power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain it by terror, violence, and oppression is not a disgrace only, but an injustice.

It was glorious to acquire a throne by justice, yet more glorious to prefer justice before a throne; the same virtue which made the one appear worthy of regal power exalted the other to the disregard of it.

And it is said that extraordinary rains generally dash down after great battles, whether it is that some divine power drenches and hallows the ground with purifying waters from Heaven, or that the blood and putrefying matter send up a moist and heavy vapour which condenses the air, this being easily moved and readily changed to the highest degree by the slightest cause.

It is the hither accomplishment to use money well than to use arms; but not to need it is more noble than to use it.

In fact Cleopatra was indebted to Fulvia for teaching Antony to obey a wife's authority, for by the time he met her he had already been quite broken in and schooled to accept the way of women.

In a harangue to the people, he said, with reference to these measures, that he had proscribed all he could think of, and as to those who now escaped his memory, he would proscribe them at some future time.

those who were getting so much money from Caesar urged the senate to give him money as if he had none, nay rather, they forced it to do so, though it groaned over its own decrees.

Best rear no lion in your state, 'tis true; But treat him like a lion if you do.

For it may happen to the commonwealth, as to the serpent in the fable, whose tail, rising in rebellion against the head, complained, as of a great grievance, that it was always forced to follow, and required that it should be permitted by turns to lead the way. And taking the command accordingly, it soon inflicted , by its senseless courses, mischiefs in abundance upon itself, while the head was torn and lacerated with following, contrary to nature, a guide that was deaf and blind.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. (Technically a misquote, but I like the misquote better)